Why such boundless contempt for turtling players?

[Mausolus]

I just read changelog, and by Hades and Set both, I feel cold sweat on my back. As die-hard turtle, seeing towers’ attack cut in half while making them more than 200% slower to construct, I do realize my favorite strategy will be even more handicapped than before (and that comes from person that plays already with handicap, with all that “minimalize killing animals as much as possible” attitude). I noticed similar pattern in AoE 3 DE, where towers were reduced purely to hideouts for villagers, upgraded trading post is borderline pointless and forts’ sole role is to produce units, because other than to settlers, defenses’ attacks pose no real threat to any other unit (being basically just symbolic) and mortars (or their equivalents) are basically waste of resources and population. So I have to ask: what is with this attempt in modern RTS games to make turtling (one of three major archetypes of RTS) borderline pain in the behind? Yes, I got accustomed that turtling is generally looked down upon by so called pros, and any attempts to get some tips how to turtle effectively is either void or downright replaced by tips how to counter turtling instead. But why the devs insist on making remake of just another game from our childhood even more unfriendly towards us turtlers?

[The Owlogram]

If we start to compare AoM buildings to AoE2 then AoM buildings are never going to look good because in AoE2 even unfinished buildings are like invincible. Seriously I've had elephants being completely blocked out by house walls wtf. AoM has always been faster paced than AoE2 anyway. To come back on AoM, like I get where you come from but it's looking biased by not mentioning that they also nerf offense, like the TC attack nerf mentioned in the link posted by the OP has been reverted, Kronos rush has been nerfed, Isis meteor speedrun has been nerfed, etc. Like I'm sure something as simple as giving back the ballistics effect to crenellations would go a long way to help smooth things out. Oh and they need to do something so that Thor can't just overwhelm you with infinite eco and then get burning pitch throwing axemen (why does it affect them anyway lol) to snipe your stuff. That would help more than tower buffs tbh.

[Caz]

I was considering picking AoM up since I played it so much back in the day. But just like with AoE 2's rebootmakemaster, I lost interest since my style of play is turtling and that's been effectively made not viable. Guess I'll just have to wait until a dev is bold enough to let people turtle again.

Would love to have a Supreme Commander 3 with the same design philosophy as SupCom1, but I guess I'm more likely to walk to the moon than that happening...

[Mausolus]

Originally posted by Caz:

I was considering picking AoM up since I played it so much back in the day. But just like with AoE 2's rebootmakemaster, I lost interest since my style of play is turtling and that's been effectively made not viable. Guess I'll just have to wait until a dev is bold enough to let people turtle again.

Would love to have a Supreme Commander 3 with the same design philosophy as SupCom1, but I guess I'm more likely to walk to the moon than that happening...

Well, as I said, I take back my previous statement - while turtling (and defensive playstyle in general) is harder in Retold, it is still doable, as long as you avoid Ranked (no big deal for me, I intended to avoid that cesspit either way). Still, it is sad that “empire-builders” (many of them, me included, started with original AoM as kids that way) are pushed aside for the sake of e-sport BS…

[Mausolus]

Originally posted by Heimdall313:

Turtling gets stripped out by the "match needs to end within 40 mins max or I quit and go next match" base because of things like eSports spending stacks of cash by the hour to rent a venue, etc. Fast, flashy rushes are much more "exciting" to American football brained people than two riot shields clacking until one drops of starvation / exhaustion.

Seen it with Pokemon, time limits implemented on match duration and even move selection to get faster rounds. You ever see a venue manager SWEAT over the brutal durability I can shove into a problem's face until they surrender and have all afternoon to do so? I have.
Seen it in every other RTS I've played. The entire game becomes centralized around fast match turnaround times because I guess it keeps a Tik-Tok addicted audience engaged and retained better and they're worth more than the dying breed of people with even a modicum of patience.

ESports are truly a disease of gaming industry, not even slightly better than lootboxes, “Always-online”, “You-don’t-own-your-games” and other abominations. Even though I take back my previous statement, those nerfs to defences looked much worse on paper than in practice, they are still nerfs just for the sake of making another RTS “in-line” with eSport demands. Makes me wonder why devs even bother with remakes of RTS games at all. Why such work on better graphics and effects, do they think that common eSport junkie is interested in such things? Of course not, with their playstyle, they won’t even notice, and certainly not appreciate. Yet the remakes are made with them in mind, while my kind (“empire-builders” or “doll-house-builders” if one wishes to be extra venomous, even though I tend to take the latter moniker as badge of honour lately) are pushed aside as second-class fans.